Compact portable pulsed power generators (i.e. power sources) are either currently utilized or desired for a wide variety of applications including flame initiation and detonation in pulse detonation engines (PDE) for high speed aircraft, biomedical research into the pulsed electric field treatment of cancerous cells, ultra-wideband (UWB) and high power microwave (HPM) directed energy devices, free electron lasers, x-ray imaging devices and kinetic energy launchers such as railguns. Pulsed power generators can be generally categorized as either repetitive use or single use. Repetitive use pulse power generators can include capacitively driven generators while single use generators can include explosively driven (i.e. shock driven) generators. Examples of explosively driven pulsed power generators include magnetocumulative (MCG) generators and generators based upon the explosive compression of ferroelectric materials.
The present invention relates to compact, shock-driven (e.g. explosively compressed) ferroelectric pulsed power supplies that can produce high voltage and current outputs over short time durations. Applications for shock-driven ferroelectric power supplies can require compact power sources operating at elevated temperatures, which typically degrade the performance of currently available shock-driven ferroelectric power supplies. This degradation of performance at elevated temperatures can manifest itself as a lowering of the electrical output of the ferroelectric elements, within a ferroelectric pulsed power supply. The methods of the present invention overcome this limitation by providing ferroelectric elements for shock driven power supplies with increased electrical output at elevated temperatures without compromising high voltage breakdown resistance at lower temperatures. In embodiments of the invention, this can be accomplished by producing ferroelectric ceramic elements having multiple distinct regions of pore morphology and therefore multiple distinct regions of density (e.g. mass per unit volume).